Solar power set to fuel communication revolution in developing world

Hereward Holland and Leonora Walet

Reuters

KAMPALA/HONG KONG: Watching his sons kick around a makeshift ball made from tightly bound plastic bags, Ugandan handyman Jackson Mawa marvels at the way business has improved since he bought a solar-powered mobile phone. “I am self-employed. Sometimes people call me and they find my [cell]phone is off. I have been having that problem a lot due to battery charging. So when [Uganda Telecom] brought out the solar phones, since I got it, that very day, I have never had any problem with my phone,” said Mawa, clutching the device.

It might not sound like much but for Mawa and millions of others in Africa and Asia with no connection to electricity grids or unreliable and expensive power access, these little solar-powered gadgets are proving to be revolutionary.

Farmers can check market prices before deciding which crop seeds to sow, speak to buyers from their fields and get weather forecasts. Never once must they worry about their phone’s battery losing power.

Solar-powered cellphones could build on the economic advantages that mobile phones have already brought to far-flung regions of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, such as price transparency and more accurate and up-to-date information for businesses.

Mobile-phone penetration in these regions has been held back by a lack of electricity: there is simply no way to charge a cellphone in many rural areas of developing countries.

An estimated 1.6 billion people have no access to electricity at all, while another 1 billion people have no electricity for much of the day, according to estimates made by development groups.

Fortuitously, perhaps, most of these people live in sunny climates. And this is where solar-powered cellphones come into their own.

“If you look at the map of countries with low tele-density there is plenty of sunshine everywhere,” says Rajiv Mehrotra, chairman of VNL, a company making solar-powered mobile network base stations in India.

Take Uganda as a case in point: Just 8 percent of the country’s 32 million-plus population have electric-grid access. Even when the grid is there, like where Mawa lives in Mulago, a poor suburb of Kampala, the power is costly and the service is intermittent.

“In our area, electricity is expensive so at six o’clock in the morning, we turn our power off until six in the evening,” said Mawa, 29, sitting on a step outside his house.

For those traveling to areas with electricity to charge standard cellphones, the journey might take all day and the cost of charging the battery might be more than that day’s lost wages.

There are more than 3 billion people using mobile phones around the world and most of the next billion users will come from emerging markets, particularly in the countrysides of these areas.

The makers of solar cellphones such as Nokia, Samsung and ZTE see the rural poor in these emerging markets as their main customer base rather than carbon-conscious consumers in the West.

“People’s need to communicate is so high. It’s running miles ahead of the power grids expansions,” says Anne Larilahti, head of environmentally sustainable business at network equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks.

Solar phones are not new: The top phone maker Nokia sold a model a dozen years ago, but with technology development their usability and prices are starting to reach masses.

About an hour of solar charging offers around 5-10 minutes of talk time. Selling at around $60, Samsung Solar Guru features FM radio, MP3 ring tones, embedded games, and a torch light.

If demand for such phones really takes off, it is a risk for Nokia, who likely cannot watch for long from the sidelines as its market share in India and in Africa is 60-70 percent.

With proper positioning and pricing, solar-powered cellphones could improve the lives of around 2 billion people across the globe who have no access to electricity.